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Project Board

John M Schubert AO

Chairman

Dr John Schubert (BE, PhD, FIEAust, CPEng, FTS, FIChemE) has chaired the eReefs Project Board since inception in 2012. John is the Chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, is a Director of BHP Billiton Limited, Chairman of Garvan Institute of Medical Research and a Member of the Business Council of Australia.

John commenced his career with Esso Australia Ltd as a professional engineer and held various positions with Esso in Australia and overseas. In 1983 he was appointed to the Board of Esso Australia. In 1985, he became Esso's Deputy Managing Director and in 1988 Esso's Chairman and Managing Director. John was Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Pioneer International Limited from 1993 until 2000. From 2001 to 2003 he was the President of the Business Council of Australia. He was previously Chairman of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Worley Parsons Limited, and a director of Qantas Airways Limited, and Hanson plc.

Paul Greenfield AO

Alternate Chairman

Professor Paul Greenfield is Immediate Past Vice-Chancellor of The University of Queensland. He was previously Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Chemical Engineering at The University of Queensland. Prior to 2001, Paul was Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Director of the Graduate School. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE), the Institution of Chemical Engineers, UK (FIChE) and an Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, Australia (FIEAust, CPEng).

Paul is a Director on a number of Company and CRC Boards (UniQuest Pty Ltd, Symbiosis Ltd). He is currently Chair of the International Scientific Advisory Committee of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Group of the South East Queensland Healthy Waterways Partnership. Recently he was appointed Chair of the Expert Panel on Purified Recycled Water. He is also Chair of the Riversymposium Strategic Planning Committee, the Thiess International Riverprize Committee and the International Water Centre. He was awarded an Order of Australia (AO) in 2006.

Anna Marsden

Board Member

Anna Marsden has been Managing Director for the Great Barrier Reef Foundation since 2016. Prior to joining the Foundation, Anna was CEO of Queensland Ballet where she led a major change program resulting in enormous growth. Anna has worked extensively across the Queensland creative and not for profit industries in managerial, marketing and business development roles for nearly two decades.

She previously held roles as General Manager – Creative at Rowland, Australia’s leading corporate communications agency, Development Director of the Queensland Art Gallery and GoMA, and General Manager at the Institute of Modern Art. Anna holds board positions with Brisbane Festival, Brisbane Powerhouse and Circa.

Christine Williams

Board Member

Dr Christine Williams is Queensland's current Acting Chief Scientist. In this role Christine is accountable for science policy, providing strategic guidance across a range of government departments, and is involved with a number of reviews and enquiries. In her previous role as Assistant Director-General, Science, Christine has worked in close partnership with other government agencies (state and federal), universities and other research groups, as well as industry, a role she continues to perform and expand upon as Acting Chief Scientist.

Christine was previously an academic at Queensland University of Technology and The University of Queensland where she was responsible for teaching statistics and econometrics. She is an economist by training with a Doctor of Philosophy from The University of Queensland and a Master of Philosophy from Oxford University.

Andy Steven

CSIRO representative

Dr Andy Steven has twenty five-plus years of experience in coastal research and management throughout temperate and tropical Australia, the Asia-Pacific and the Middle-East. He is the Research Director of the CSIRO Coastal Development & Management Program, the largest coastal research program currently in Australia. He is also the Director of the Australian Coastal Ecosystem Facility (ACEF) and leads the CSIRO involvement in the eReefs project and the CSIRO Marine and Coastal Carbon Biogeochemistry Cluster.

Andy is recognized for his research on nutrient and carbon biogeochemistry of coastal ecosystems, including coral reefs and estuaries, and its application to natural research management. His research and leadership in the field coastal optical biogeochemistry has contributed to the development of regionally validated algorithms for Great Barrier Reef waters and the provenance of colour dissolved organic matter as an important bio-optical constituent. He has championed the development and application of new technologies for observing monitoring aquatic ecosystems include the use of optical and acoustic methods, the development of underway and in situ monitoring and the application of remote sensing for water quality assessment.

Andy currently holds adjunct positions at Griffith University and the University Technology of Sydney and co-supervises a number of doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows. Andy has a strong record of civic duty and has worked on a number of not for profit boards and steering committees related to marine and environmental science and monitoring.

Rob Webb

Bureau of Meteorology

Rob Webb is the Bureau's Deputy Chief Executive and Group Executive of the National Forecast Services Group. Rob's portfolio includes overall responsibility for the Bureau's 24x7 national and regional weather, water, climate and ocean forecasting and warning services. This includes climate outlooks, flood warnings, cyclone warnings, streamflow forecasting and tsunami warnings. Rob also oversight the Bureau's external communications functions including social media and videography.

Until 2015, Rob was the Regional Director of Queensland and has extensive operational forecasting experience.

David Souter

Board Member

Dr David Souter is the Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, Townsville, Australia. He is focused on the management and coordination of research at AIMS, particularly the collaborative development of long-term strategic research directions of the Institute. In addition, the role requires considerable engagement and communication of research outcomes to key government, industry and public stakeholders.

His initial research interest focused on understanding the ecology and behaviour of crown-of-thorns starfish in low-density populations on the Great Barrier Reef. However, during the last 18 years, he has been involved in coral reef research, tropical coastal ecosystems management, global assessments and scientific capability development in Australia, East Africa, the Indian Ocean Islands, South and Southeast Asia through World Bank, UNEP, Sida, and AusAID funded programs.

David is currently Chair, Program Design Working Group of the Reef 2050 Long-term Sustainability Plan Reef Integrated Monitoring and Reporting Program (RIMReP).

Bruce Elliot

Observer (Chair of the User Reference Group)

Mr. Bruce Elliot has been with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority since September 2008, initially as the General Manager Corporate Services and more recently as the General Manager Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use. Prior to his current appointment, he was an Assistant Commissioner with the Australian Taxation Office, where he was responsible for capability leadership of Intelligence and Risk and the provision of support to compliance programs.

Prior to his time with Tax, Bruce was a commissioned officer in the Australian Army, primarily as an Intelligence officer. His career highlights included unit command, operational tours to the East Timor and the Middle East and postings to New Zealand, Indonesia and the US. He has a Masters of Defence Studies, a Bachelor of Professional Studies and an Advanced Diploma in Indonesian Language.

Peter May

Observer (Chair of the Operations Committee)

Dr. Peter May has been the Assistant Director for Research and Development in the Bureau of Meteorology since 2009, a role now referred to as the Head of Research. During this time he has also served as the Deputy Director of the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research. His portfolio covers environmental issues, climate science and weather applications as well as developing staff and corporate capability. He has overseen the development of the operational systems that underpin Bureau services as well as major projects delivering climate information to the nation, including the development of atmospheric and marine forecast systems. He has led major interdisciplinary international field experiments as well as many small and large projects.

Peter also serves on a number of national advisory committees and represent the Bureau on major national and international committees. He is currently a member of the Management Committee for the WMO Commission of Atmospheric Science that oversees WMO weather and environmental research coordination. He has also served as chair of the American Meteorological Society Committee for Radar Meteorology and is on the WMO Expert team on severe monsoon weather. He has authored or co-authored more than 110 peer-reviewed papers in the areas of radar remote sensing, signal processing, cloud properties, thunderstorms and tropical cyclones. He has served as an editor for the Journal of Oceanic and Atmospheric Technology and Associate Editor for Reviews of Geophysics.